


SNake

by Scedasticity



Series: Crossover Sburb Sessions [2]
Category: Homestuck, Kagerou Project, Mekakucity Actors
Genre: Alternate Universe - SBURB Fusion, See notes for warnings, throwing you in the homestuck deep end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-19 03:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9417209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scedasticity/pseuds/Scedasticity
Summary: A very bad day for the waking dreamers on Prospit's moon.





	1. Very Bad Day

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing these characters, so I hope I didn't butcher them too badly. I'll follow up with some notes on the session and probably a bit more story, but for now, here's this.
> 
> Warnings: Discussion of (sort of) suicide and (by my standards) graphic violence.

**== > ROGUE OF MIND: HAVE A TERRIBLE DAY**

Ayano is still sleeping like an enchanted princess, like a corpse — she's never stirred, not once, since you woke up on the golden moon all those months ago. Shintarō is twitching with pain, bleeding from his mouth and nose, half-open eyes glazing over as the fatal injuries transfer over to his dreamself. He's never properly woken up, either, and now he never will. The kid — Hibiya, he's dead, you should use his name — was struggling and failing to breathe with a crushed ribcage until he up and _disappeared_ thirty seconds ago. So it's just you and Haruka, staring at each other in horror.

At the same time, you're in the Land of Signs and Walkways (a.k.a. the biggest fuck you a computer game ever inflicted on a human being), looking out of a phone with a cracked screen. It's on the ground, right next to Shintarō's dying body, both of you next to the weird stone bed that holds the kid's dead one. The _thing_ wearing Konoha's body (which is really Haruka's body, sort of) has moved on, chasing the others. You're half-listening through Momo's phone, but you can't leave Shintarō to die alone, and it's not like you could help anyway.

That you isn't very aware of this you. Konoha wasn't aware of this Haruka at all — Konoha wasn't aware of much — and the _thing_ doesn't seem to be either, which is good, but it would be even better if the lack of awareness was two-way, right now.

"Oh, god," Haruka whispers. "He's going to kill all of them."

( _"Take Marry and Momo and get to a transportalizer, we'll try to hold him off!"_ )

"…Probably," you say hollowly. Kido and Kano can carve their way through underlings better than any of the rest of you (though you think you could do better if the you in your Land wasn't the electronic one), but take away their eye abilities… against _that_ …

( _"Princes fight, Maids don't, you go with them!" "I have a sword and you're still bludgeoning imps with a_ mask _, I'm staying, be grateful I'm letting you stay!"_ Technically the mask has sharp edges and he's been throwing it like a frisbee, but you'd still give the point to Kido.)

"Maybe — maybe they'll surprise us." You're not expecting it, but that's what being surprised requires, right? You try to cling to Ene's positivity, but it's hard when you can hear Momo's tears and Marry's quiet keening.

( _"I'm not leaving you—" "Take them and_ go _, dammit!"_ )

"Or maybe… maybe there is something we can do," Haruka says slowly. He's looking at Shintarō, whose skull is starting to depress where his waking-self hit the corner of the slab on the way down.

"Huh? What?"

**== > PAGE OF SPACE: MAKE THE HARD CHOICE**

"Maybe… maybe it's two-way."

It takes Takane a minute to get it, but you're both still watching a Shintarō who's dying by inches without being touched. "No. _No_."

( _Not-Konoha lopes along a walkway over an empty road and kicks an unlucky consort out into space. He can hear Kano shouting, Momo sobbing._ )

"He's going to kill them, Takane—"

( _He jumps up to perch on top of a Keep Left sign, looking down on Kido and Kano. Marry's hair can be glimpsed disappearing around a corner. That's fine. He's not in a hurry._ )

"—he's going to kill them and _I'm going to have to watch_."

"So you want, what, me to kill you? No! I am _not_ going to be the last survivor of us!"

"No, I'm not saying that—"

( _Oh, look, there's a phone forgotten on the ground, wide blue eyes staring out of it._ )

Your eyes widen. "— _Get out of Momo's phone_!"

She gets it immediately. "I can't completely control—"

( _Crunch. "That's three down, five to go," he singsongs._ )

Takane freezes, hands flying to her head. "Oh, _fuck_ —"

( _"She probably wasn't even in there!" Kano says. He'd sound the same if he believed it, but not-Konoha knows he doesn't._ )

Takane — _fritzes_ , going staticky around the edges before she stabilizes. "I wasn't even _alive_ , how can dying kill me?!" she shouts.

( _He casually dodges Kido's charge and nearly wrenches the sword away, only to let her keep it at the last moment._ )

"Takane—"

"Oh, god, _fine_. But don't expect me to do anything 'cause I may not last that long."

( _He's playing with them._ )

"It's not — I wouldn't—" You don't have time. "Just, can you get Shintarō's feet?"

"…Right. Can't let him die alone here, since I fucked it up on LOSAW."

It's not just that, though you don't have time to explain — Kano and Kido don't have time for you to explain. You spent more time wandering Prospit than Takane, even — she has, had, more of a connection to her waking self, 'slept' here sometimes. You know more than Takane, and much more than not-Konoha. You know Hibiya's _fine_. You have a hope. Not a certainty, since it's not meant to work on dying-by-transfer dreamselves or dreamselves with live waking selves, but a hope.

( _He'll kill Kido and leave Kano alive — he's had a lot of fun with live Kano, he looks forward to more._ )

You borrow a sword from a guardsprospitian, who's horrified at Shintarō's injuries and Takane's occasional flickering, and make for the moon's core. Behind you, Ayano sleeps on.

By the time you reach the Sacrificial Slabs, Takane is more static than solid and you have to carry Shintarō alone. You try not to drop him too hard on the Blood slab, but he was getting really heavy. You point at the Mind slab. "Over there, stand over there."

"Collapse over here, fine."

( _He lost track of Kido and Kano after stabbing Kido in the belly with her own sword — he's not quite sure how, it was almost like her ability started working again — but that's fine, there are three more targets that are easy to track. Maybe he can get the little monster to rewind them out of this surreal nightmarescape._ )

Shintarō is starting to glow. Takane is starting to glow. If you do this fast and you get in touch with Kano in time to explain the kiss resurrection, you _might get through this with everyone alive_.

You lie back, and lift the sword.

**== > SNAKE OF CLEARING EYES: REACT TO THE ASCENSION OF THE DREAMSELF OF THE BODY YOU'RE OCCUPYING**

You explode.

Since you're on the Battlefield, it's nothing too unusual for the neighborhood, but you still _traumatize the hell_ out of three players and an unlucky Warweary Villein.

 

 


	2. Notes

Everything got started when, separately, Marry and later Kenjirō and Ayaka found a frog temple in the forest. Marry could tell it _hadn't been there_ in previous iterations, and thought it might provide a way out somehow. Kenjirō and Ayaka didn't know what the hell it was, but it was certainly mysterious, so they studied it. Kenjirō is the one who first put the code from the temple into game format — their version is for mobile devices! He dropped it when he got possessed. The Snake of Clearing Eyes wasn't interested in deviating from the established pattern.

Ayano was exploring it as a possible way to get through to her father somehow. She probably got Kano to be her server player. However, she still jumped off the roof before a corner of the school disappeared and a very small meteor crashed into it, so with all the stress Kano didn't really put anything together about it.

When Ene and Konoha were created, Takane and Haruka woke up on Prospit. Takane has a… slightly weird dreamself-connection with Ene, they're frequently conscious at the same time, while Haruka's is very strange — Konoha has no awareness of Haruka at all, Haruka has complete awareness, and their states of consciousness are unrelated.

When Marry and Ene were officially introduced, Marry asked Ene if she could get the game installed on everyone's phones. Ene could. (Ene is also responsible for "SNake" as a name.) After that things got really hectic really fast.

Eventually, someone had to go to the actual first planet, the Land of Ghosts and Echoes, and use Ayano's abandoned phone to close the loop. Everyone is pretty freaked out about that. Her comatose dreamself is not general knowledge.

After the triple-Sacrificial Slab-ascension following the Very Bad Day, they get the idea of seeing if it will work with Ayano, and eventually work up the nerve to do it. It works. Ayano is _extremely confused_.

Marry is **Witch of Time** , Derse dreamer, in the **Land of Tears and Pulses**. She doesn't use her Time powers _at all_ until a long ways into the game — way past the incident with the snake — because she's afraid it will just turn out the way her tampering with time always does, and she got into this to try to _avoid_ that.

Kido is **Maid of Void** , Derse dreamer, in the **Land of Doors and Downpours**. She takes to the game quickly and climbs the echeladder fast. She abruptly discovered a Voidy Thing in the middle of the Incident, and therefore survived long enough for Kano to get her back to her Land, where they got pointed at her Quest Bed.

Seto is **Mage of Heart** , Derse dreamer, in the **Land of Mist and Leaves**. The game is a headache for him because carapacians and underlings both have very open minds, and Denizens have very _loud_ minds. Unlike many of the others, his Game powers don't have much in common with his eye abilities.

Momo is **Heir of Light** , Derse dreamer, in the **Land of Plazas and Spotlights**. It takes a while to connect her sudden improvement in luck with her role. Like Seto, the susceptibility of the locals is a bit of an issue, but it's not quite as obvious with her because players _already_ tend to be the center of attention wherever they go. She's the one to pull the three of them together after the Incident explosion — stop screaming, ask WV if he has somewhere they can wash up, avoid getting the attention of everything on the Battlefield, and not panic when newly-god-tier Hibiya shows up. 

Kano is **Prince of Rage** , Derse dreamer, in the **Land of Shards and Shadows**. He complains the most about his assigned classpect — he just isn't feeling 'prince', can't he switch, there must be something he can switch to. Thief, maybe, he likes the sound of Thief! He's iffier on Rage, Rage might be okay, but Hope or Breath would be better! Thief of Breath has a nice ring to it! He tries to get his consorts — chameleons — to call him Thief of Breath. They won't. After the Incident, he is extremely reluctant to go god tier himself.

Haruka is (and therefore Konoha is simultaneously, until the Incident) **Page of Space** , Prospit dreamer, **Land of Ink and Frogs**. Konoha worked slowly but steadily on frog-breeding. He met Echidna before the Incident, but wouldn't discuss the Choice he was given; Haruka won't either, afterwards. It may or may not have had to do with sacrificing this version of himself so Haruka could be fully active.

Takane is (and therefore Ene is simultaneously, until the Incident) **Rogue of Mind** , Prospit dreamer, **Land of Pixels and Paths**. Ene made very slow progress due to not existing outside phones and computers. She and Momo started work on a robot body, but didn't have time to get very far before the Incident. Post-Incident, Takane can and usually does access computers with her brain, but doesn't usually go out-of-body.

Hibiya is **Knight of Doom** , Prospit dreamer, **Land of Signs and Walkways**. It's a pretty awful "fuck you" of a Land, just crosswalks and scaffolds and street signs everywhere. There's no actual traffic, but sometimes the walkways fall. Hibiya _hates it_. He could only hate it more if there were actual bodies around or if the consorts were cats. They're rats with traffic safety obsessions (despite the lack of traffic!).

Shintarō is **Seer of Blood** , Prospit dreamer, **Land of Haze and Memory**. He _freaks out_ over the Game's existence, being expected to fight video game monsters in real life, Ayano's planet's existence, and, subconsciously, this timeline's complete deviation from normal paths; he shuts himself in his closet and won't come out for a good thirty-six hours. Ene has to do his server-player work for him. He mostly pulls it together after that but doesn't really find his feet until after the Incident and ascending to god tier. His Game powers, perhaps ironically, help him get more of a handle on his eye ability.

Ayano is **Sylph of Life** , Prospit dreamer, **Land of Ghosts and Echoes**. She is, as mentioned, very very very confused when they get up the nerve to sacrifice her dreamself and she ascends.

God tier outfits:


	3. RISE UP

**== > SEER OF BLOOD: RISE UP**

You come to hovering in a gold… cavern. Which is strange, as the last thing you remember is lying in Hibiya's hideous Land, dying of massive head trauma inflicted by a thing in Konoha's body (snake of clearing eyes it's the snake of clearing eyes how could it follow you here kill you even _here_ ). Now you're unhurt, and hovering, and… what are you _wearing_ …? And…

And Haruka and Takane are there, too, also hovering. Also in very unusual clothes.

(This definitely did not happen in any of the other iterations. But then almost none of what happened since Ene gave you all the app did.)

"Are we dead? What am I wearing?"

"That's what _I_ was going to ask!" Takane says. "Haruka, where are your pants?"

Haruka waves his hands. "This is just how a Page's regalia looks," he says. "I'm Page of Space, you're Rogue of Mind, Shintarō is Seer of Blood, and these are our God Tier clothes, because we all died on Sacrificial Slabs."

"Sacrificial Slabs," Takane echoes. "God Tier. Fuck. I thought when they said you had to die to get to God Tier they were being _figurative_. I thought — I don't know _why_ I thought that, it's not like this game hasn't been _stupidly_ literal before."

"Game," you said. "You know about the—" They're throwing around _titles_ , of course they know about the game. And Konoha and Ene are Page of Space and Rogue of Mind, so this means— (of course that's not really a surprise, not for you, not after all the times you've learned the truth—) You groan, and clap your hands to your face. Ow. "What about everyone else?" you ask.

"My, uh, ascending should have… disabled Konoha's body," Haruka says. "We think."

"No, we thought your _dying_ would _kill_ Konoha and we were _desperate_." Takane glares. "That was what _I_ thought, anyway."

"I'm sorry, I didn't really have time to explain—"

"Ugh! Let's just get back up and see if we can see anyone in the clouds."

And with _that_ nonsensical statement, they both take off. Flying. How the hell are they so good at it already?!

**== > KNIGHT OF DOOM: RISE UP**

You already did that. If anyone asks you'll say it sucked, but truthfully, it beat dying and also it got you off LOSAW, for the moment at least. The Battlefield has lots of Prospitians and Dersites killing each other in a prolonged war they're programmed to care about, but at least it has no traffic signals.

You turn your attention away from the doomed (ha, ha) fighting in the distance and to the sky — what does Skaia have to show you?

It has the dark Konoha _exploding_. You lose about a meter of elevation in shock. 

But it looks like Seto, Marry, and that stupid Momo are somewhere on the Battlefield, so… You close your eyes, even though there's no one watching to see them flash red.  _That_ way.

You're only partway there, though, when you see _another Quest Bed_ materialize on the Battlefield — blue stone, purple pajamas, green hair, rapidly growing pool of blood. Well, she's not dead, at least. …Won't be dead. You wait for her to be all the way not-dead, easily identifiable when the whole area becomes abruptly _nothing-to-see-here-move-along_. "Kido-san?" you call. "Are you still there? Seto and Marry and Momo are all… that way…"

Kido blurs back into perceptibility. "They're okay?"

"It… exploded. The Konoha-thing." (He promised to get Hiyori back. But you kind of knew that wasn't going to happen, for a while now. And that's the only reason you care!) 

"All right. Meet up with them first, then I need to find a way to get back to LODAD. Kano probably isn't taking this well."

**== > PRINCE OF RAGE: TAKE IT BADLY**

…

You're not even going to dignify that with a reply.


End file.
